Just before eleven o'clock that night Jack Sainsbury stopped at a large,
rather severe house half-way up Wimpole Street--a house the door of
which could be seen in the daytime to be painted a royal blue, thus
distinguishing it from its rather dingy green-painted neighbours.
In response to his ring at the visitors' bell, a tall, middle-aged,
round-faced manservant opened the door.
"Is Dr Jerrold in?" Jack inquired.
"Yes, sir," was the man's quick reply; and then, as Sainsbury entered,
he added politely: "Nice evening, sir."
"Very," responded the visitor, laying-down his hat and stick and taking
off his overcoat in the wide, old-fashioned hall.
Dr Jerome Jerrold, though still a young man, was a consulting physician
of considerable eminence, and, in addition, was Jack's most intimate
friend. Their fathers had been friends, living in the same remote
country village, and, in consequence, ever since his boyhood he had
known the doctor.
Jack was a frequent visitor at the doctor's house, Jerrold always being
at home to him whenever he called. The place was big and solidly
furnished, a gloomy abode for a bachelor without any thought of
marrying. It had belonged to Jerrold's aunt, who had left it to him by
her will, together with a comfortable income; hence her nephew had found
it, situated as it was in the centre of the medical quarter of London, a
most convenient, if dull, place of abode.
On the ground floor was the usual depressing waiting-room, with its big
round table littered with illustrated papers and magazines; behind it
the consulting-room, with its businesslike writing-table--whereon many a
good man's death-warrant had been written in that open case-book--its
heavy leather-covered furniture, and its thick Turkey carpet, upon which
the patient trod noiselessly.
Above, in the big room on the first floor, Jerome Jerrold had his cosy
library--for he was essentially a studious man, his literary mind having
a bent for history, his "History of the Cinquecento" being one of the
standard works upon that period. Indeed, while on the ground floor all
was heavy, dull and gloomy, well in keeping with the dismal atmosphere
which all the most famous West-End doctors seem to cultivate, yet, on
the floor above, one passed instantly into far brighter, more pleasant
and more artistic surroundings.
Without waiting for the servant, Thomasson, to conduct him upstairs,
Jack Sainsbury ran lightly up, as was his habit, and tried the door of
the doctor's den, when, to his surprise, he found it locked.
He twisted the handle again, but it was certainly firmly fastened.
"Jerome!" he cried, tapping at the door. "Can I come in? It's Jack!"
But there was no reply. Sainsbury strained his ears at the door, but
could detect no movement within.
A taxicab rushed past; then a moment later, when the sound had died
away, he cried again--
"Jerome! I'm here! I want to see you, old fellow. Open the door."
Still there was no answer.
Thomasson, standing at the foot of the wide, old-fashioned stairs, heard
his master's visitor, and asked--
"Is the door locked, sir?"
"Yes," Jack shouted back.
"That's very strange?" remarked the man. "I've let nobody in since Mr
Trustram, of the Admiralty, went away--about a quarter of an hour ago."
"Has he been here?" Jack asked. "I met him here the other day. He
struck me as being a rather surly man, and I didn't like him at all,"
declared Sainsbury, with his usual frankness.
"Neither do I, sir, strictly between ourselves," replied Thomasson quite
frankly. "He's been here quite a lot lately. His wife consulted the
master about three months ago, and that's how they first met, I believe.
But can't you get in?"
"No. Curious, isn't it?"
"Very. The doctor never locks his door in the usual way," Thomasson
said, ascending the stairs with Sainsbury, and himself trying the
handle.